Tether Hires BDO Italia for Monthly Assurance Reports, USDT’s Quarterly Attestation Shows a 58% Decrease in Commercial Paper

This week, the stablecoin issuer Tether Holdings Limited revealed an update to its assurance and attestation process and detailed that the company has been working with accounting firm BDO Italia. The accounting firm will conduct monthly tether assurance reports based on the stablecoin issuer’s reserves. The following day, Tether published its quarterly assurance opinion completed by BDO and it notes that the company has seen a 58% decrease in commercial paper reserves.

Tether Holdings Limited, the company behind the largest stablecoin by market capitalization tether (USDT), announced on Thursday that BDO Italia will be conducting monthly USDT assurance reports. In the past, Tether’s assurance reports were written by the firm MHA Cayman, an auditor formally known as Moore Cayman. Tether’s announcement on August 18 notes that it has worked with the top five ranked accounting firm in terms of revenue, BDO Italia, since July 2022 for the firm’s quarterly attestation.

After the announcement noting Tether will leverage BDO for assurance reports, Tether and BDO published the stablecoin’s quarterly consolidated reserves report. BDO’s report breaks down Tether Holdings Limited’s assets as of June 30, 2022. “As of June 30th, the CCR and BDO confirmed a more than 58% decrease in Tether’s commercial paper holdings over the prior quarter from $20B to $8.5B, which is on track with Tether’s commitment to the community,” Tether detailed in a blog post published on August 19. Tether’s consolidated reserves report summary continues:

As previously announced, the exposure to commercial papers will be down to 200m by the end of August 2022 and to zero before the end of the year. During the same period, Tether has increased its holdings of cash and bank deposits by 32%.

Tether’s recent report follows the issues with myriad stablecoin assets in 2022. On August 17 and 18, the Stable Universe Limited issued HUSD temporarily depegged from its U.S. dollar parity, slipping to $0.827 per unit on Thursday. HUSD’s peg has since been restored, but a few days before the depegging incident, AUSD, a Polkadot-based stablecoin, dropped 98% in value on August 14. AUSD managed to rebound and reach $0.85 on August 19, but the stablecoin is currently trading for $0.8167 per unit. In addition to AUSD, the largest stablecoin depegging event in 2022 derived from Terra’s UST implosion.

The once-stable coin, Terra’s UST, which is now known as terrausd classic (USTC), is currently trading for $0.0237 per unit. This year, stablecoins like Waves’ neutrino usd (USDN), Abracadabra’s magic internet money (MIM), and Tron’s USDD token saw their values slip below the $1 parity. The dominant stablecoins USDT and USDC have not seen such issues in terms of slipping below peg, however, the number of tethers in circulation has dropped considerably since April 11. On that day, there were approximately 82,694,361,442 tethers in circulation after the dollar-pegged crypto saw a 3% increase in growth the month prior.

Today, the number of tether in circulation, according to coingecko.com statistics, indicates that there’s currently 67,549,562,651 tether today. The data shows that over the last 130 days, the number of tether in circulation has dropped by 18.31%.

The 67.54 billion USDT represents 6.266% of the entire $1.07 trillion crypto market economy on August 19. Moreover, while there was $104.78 billion in global cryptocurrency trade volume during the last day, USDT captured $60.19 billion, which equates to 57.87% of today’s crypto trade volume. The chief technology officer at Tether Holdings Limited, Paolo Ardoino, explained on Friday that aligning with BDO shows the company’s commitment to the stablecoin ecosystem.

“We are fully committed to maintaining our role as the leading stablecoin in the market,” Ardoino said in a statement. “The utility of Tether continues to be supported by the transparency of its reserves and has been a leading source of stability allowing us to build a tool for the global economy. Our commitment to transparency and the community is a long-standing pillar in the underlying ethos of the company and aligns with our responsibility as a market leader.”

USDC also leverages a top five accounting services firm, in terms of revenue, Grant Thornton LLP, in order to provide monthly attestations. The Centre consortium, which is made up of Circle Financial and Coinbase Global, is usd coin’s (USDC) custodian and stablecoin issuer. In addition to Tether’s quarterly attestation that looks at reserves held on June 30, Centre and Grant Thornton published a USDC reserves attestation for June 2022 as well.

What do you think about Tether Holdings Limited teaming up with the accounting firm BDO Italia? What do you think about Tether’s latest quarterly assurance report which shows a decrease in commercial paper holdings? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.